Super El Niño Live Map Shows Its Tongue Swelling Toward Winter Peak

A massive warm water mass has expanded across the Pacific Ocean since April, according to maps tracking the intensifying El Niño phenomenon. El Niño, a natural climate pattern in the Pacific, brings warmer waters and can affect temperature and precipitation worldwide. Federal forecasters recently indicated a strong El Niño is likely to occur during the upcoming Northern Hemisphere winter, with a 75 percent chance of a historic event in October-December that would surpass any previous El Niño since 1950.

The 1997-98 and 2015-16 events both caused widespread disruptions, including flooding in the Americas, droughts and wildfires in Indonesia and Australia. A key indicator of El Niño is a tongue-shaped band of unusually warm water stretching thousands of miles along the equator from South America. When trade winds weaken, warm water from the Western Pacific moves eastward, suppressing normal upwelling and creating this warm tongue.

The live map, based on NASA satellite data, shows the tongue becoming more pronounced each month. On April 15, the water was relatively diffuse, but by May 27, a clearer band stretched westward from South America. By July 8, the band was broader and continuous, and by September 22, the strongest anomalies formed a thick, largely unbroken tongue covering much of the eastern and central equatorial Pacific.

The map uses colors to represent temperatures, with dark red areas showing temperatures 2 to 3 degrees Celsius above normal. However, NOAA emphasizes that short-term sea-surface temperature changes do not solely determine El Niño's overall strength and impacts. California Governor Gavin Newsom has declared a state of emergency in response to the potential historic El Niño winter, mobilizing resources for flood control and infrastructure protection, including snowplows, snow blowers, graders, loaders, and chain-control equipment.